


Come Away

by Vicky_V



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Angst, Community: camelot_drabble, Established Relationship, M/M, Wanderlust
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-14
Updated: 2015-01-14
Packaged: 2018-03-07 14:19:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3175860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vicky_V/pseuds/Vicky_V
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gwaine knows Lancelot would do anything for him. But to ask him to walk away from everything he's wanted is something he could never do.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Come Away

**Come Away**

 

_“Come away with me.”_

It’s a question Gwaine asks much, and yet it might as well be never. The request burns in his chest, pushes up desperately to his mouth but he can’t quite find it within himself to force the words past his lips. It took much just to be able to mouth it against Lancelot’s neck as they lay with limbs tangled in a spent mess. He’ll mutter it quietly to himself in frustration as Lancelot walks away unaware that he takes yet another missed opportunity with him. He’ll murmur it into Lancelot’s hair only when he’s sure he’s asleep.

Gwaine tries to keep focus on what good there is to be a Knight of Camelot. He has a safe and stable home for the first time since he was a child still with his father. He has brothers in arms who actually care about whether or not he falls. He has people he cares about much in return who make him give a damn about defending the place. When he drinks and laughs and tells jokes and stories it comes genuinely, not through ale-fuelled hazes.

For the most part he is happy and healthy and in a good place in Camelot. But sometimes the evenings turn darker and no amount of merriment or ale can really distract Gwaine from how much he no longer feels like his own man. Sometimes he dearly misses being able to go where he chose to, coming and going as he pleased, or dependant on how large his bar tab was. It had been an unstable life where Gwaine had been on the verge of death more times than he cared to keep track of, either from the blade of a sword or near-starvation when money and food were scarce.

But there was still freedom to be had. Freedom which the knighthood no longer granted him and sometimes Gwaine wonders if he would so easily leave his vow to Arthur behind to have it again.

If it weren’t for Lancelot, possibly.

Gwaine has loved before, but not like this. He loves Lancelot fiercely and truly. The way he loves Lancelot makes him want to be better. The way Lancelot loves him makes Gwaine believe that he can be.

But what Gwaine knows about Lancelot is how deeply he has always wanted to be a Knight of Camelot. Lancelot fought long and hard to be able to fight by Arthur’s side and it would be a cruel man to rip that all away from him.

Gwaine will not be that man. It aches when he thinks that he no longer has the freedom to run his own life anymore. But it hurts even more to think about asking Lancelot to walk away from everything he had dreamed of for so long. And the worst thing is that Lancelot would do so.

On a night when sleep eluded him, Gwaine came up with a compromise. They could leave Camelot. Both of them could just leave their chain mail and the Pendragon insignia and go. It would only be for a few days, a week at most. Just enough to taste that freedom again and then they would go back. Just a few days, but it would be enough just to be able to go where he chose to, get up when he wanted and turn Lancelot to kiss him without having to be so sure that they were alone.

But the trouble with being a Knight of Camelot is it’s made Gwaine start to think ahead, to figure out the possible outcomes. And that’s how he knows that if anything happened to Camelot while they were away, Lancelot would never forgive himself for not being around to stop it.

When those thoughts wrap themselves around Gwaine they keep sleep from him. He’s restless, can’t settle at all. If Gwaine knew when those thoughts were going to strike him, he would not go to Lancelot’s bed. Because Lancelot is a light sleeper, a habit which still clings on from far too many times having to serve with mercenary armies and gangs of outlaws who would think nothing of slitting yet another man’s throat in the night.

Gwaine is too lost in his thoughts and almost jumps when he feels Lancelot touch against his arm. Gwaine’s hand still twitches for a weapon he keeps beside him before he stops himself. But that’s a habit Lancelot understands. They’ve both had to fight their way out of things suddenly in the middle of the night.

“You keep moving,” Lancelot says softly into the dark.

Gwaine stares at a point of the wall for a moment before turning to face his lover. He curls into him, hooking their legs together and touching the tip of his nose against the point where Lancelot’s jaw meets his neck. If he focuses on not moving for the rest of the night, Gwaine decides, perhaps that will prevent him from thinking of everything he misses beyond Camelot’s walls.

And yet he finds himself asking; “I would go anywhere if it were with you. You know that?”

Something around them grows tense and colder. It was a foolish thing to say, Gwaine knew that even as he was speaking.

“What’s the matter?” Lancelot asks and Gwaine feels his fingers push gently through his hair.

“Nothing,” he says. “Just too much thinking.”

Lancelot won’t be satisfied with the answer, but he won’t pursue it. Not at such a late hour, at least. Gwaine feels Lancelot’s fingers run through his hair a few more times before sliding down and coming to rest at the back of his shoulder.

And during that time Gwaine felt his lips tremble. The one request he wanted to ask so desperately came so painfully close to finally forming itself into words and being spoken.

_“Come away with me!”_

Gwaine knows Lancelot would do anything for him. But he can never ask him that.


End file.
